Capcom: Resident Evil 4 and 5 didn't ditch horror

Resident Evil 4 and 5 did not move the series away from its horror roots towards action, Capcom has insisted.

Instead, both games explored a different kind of horror.

Tsukasa Takenaka, assistant producer on Nintendo 3DS game Resident Evil: Revelations, told Eurogamer there had been "confused messaging" around what Capcom had tried to do with the last two numbered Resident Evil games.

"I don't think 4 and 5 are not horror games," Takenaka told Eurogamer. "What we were trying to do with those games is explore different kinds of horror.

"For instance, Resident Evil 4 is not about zombies. It's about the Ganados speaking in human words and coming at you with weapons. That's a different kind of horrific thing than zombies.

"With Resident Evil 5 it was more about the light and darkness and these new things we were finally able to do with the hardware to see the contrast in the environments and those different types of surprising and interesting experiences. It was a kind of new horror.

"It's not so much that we were going away from horror and towards action. It's more that we were trying to do different kinds of scary experiences. That's maybe something that's got a little confused in terms of the messaging."

Revelations, due out early next year, is seen by many fans as a return to the series' scare-orientated haunted house roots. It is the first all-new Resi adventure since 2009's opinion-splitting Resident Evil 5.

Is its gameplay the result of fan response to Resident Evil 5?

"Certainly user feedback and what our fans and consumers want is very important to us," Takenaka explained. "We're always listening to that feedback and making use of it."

And does Revelations hint at the direction Capcom will take with Resident Evil 6?